In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a few symbols to illustrate the main themes. The most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter Hester is made to wear. The forest and the wilderness are also key symbols of the story. Another important symbol is the sun. All of these symbols support the main idea of the novel.

To begin with, the most influential symbol in the entire book is the infamous scarlet letter. Hester walks out of the prison, wearing the scarlet letter ‘A’, in the second chapter. The letter was a daily reminder of shame during the first few years of her punishment. Hawthorne writes, “Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture.” Although, later, the letter starts to mean other things to the people and Hester. Instead of bringing torture to her, it eventually becomes a different symbol to some people. Hawthorne writes, “They said that it meant ‘Able’; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.” Hawthorne later writes, “The scarlet letter had not done its office.” The scarlet letter was originally meant as a punishment for Hester, and it has not punished her. In chapter 18, Hawthorne then writes, “Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparation for this very hour.” However, the scarlet letter does bring shame to Hester, as Hawthorne writes, it has not fulfilled its purpose. Hester plans to leave town on a ship and go back to Europe with Dimmesdale. If she had learned anything from the letter, she would not have been attempting to run away with a man other than her husband. There are many different meanings to the scarlet letter throughout the novel. It means different things to different people. It was a sign of wealth to the butler, curiosity for Pearl, and guilt for Dimmesdale. It was rebelliousness,...

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...Set in 17th century Puritan Salem, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The ScarlettLetter, tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Hawthorne’s novel is filled with much symbolism. In chapter 5, Hawthorne uses her clothing to reveal Hester’s self-perception as self-loathing, to depict society against her, and to explore the nature of her daughter’s conception.
Hawthorne uses Hester’s needlework to portray her self-perception. “Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue” (p.56). Hawthorne employs irony to give emphasis to Hester’s situation. Despite the beautiful garments she made, she still chose to dress in the most simple materials. Hester was self-loathing at this point and was doing this as an act of penance, sacrificing her joy as punishment for her sins. To further show her remorse she continued to wear ornate Scarlettletter A on the breast of her attire, because despite the simplicity of the rest of her dress, it represented her crime adultery and wore it as a sign of shame.
Hawthorne’s description of Pearl’s attire displays the nature of her conception and growth. “The child’s attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, may we rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the...

...Good Arises From Unexpected Situations
In every country, every city, every house, each person in the human race faces a life-changing problem that ends up being saving one’s life. This is seen in Hawthorne’s The ScarlettLetter, where Hester is punished for her sin and the symbols that throw her off of society’s circle are adapted to represent her in a preferable way. The two symbols that represent her sin of adultery are pearl and the Scarlettletter. As the transformation of pearl and the Scarlet letter appear, they reveal the theme of good resulting from bad. These symbols illustrate Hawthorne’s belief that Hester contradicts and proves that there is no definite line between a wonderful and an awful aspect of life, which were set by the puritan women.
While being obliged to wear the ScarlettLetter with pearl in her arms, Hester is humiliated and embarrassed in front of puritan Boston. This dull moment displays the introduction to the two symbols that are related to Hester. She is then told that the Scarlettletter must be worn at all times due it’s representation her sin of adultery, which was discovered when she became pregnant while her husband was living abroad. The minute Hester begins to wear the Scarlettletter she destroys “the ordinary relations with humanity,” and she is “[inclosed] in a sphere by...

...Scientific advances have always either benefitted or harmed us. Case in point, medicine saves human lives. In contrast, chemical warfare harms human lives. In the “ScarlettLetter”, Roger Chillingworth, a world renowned scholar, chooses the path of evil. Chillingworth ends up turning into a “fiend” because of his desire to extract revenge on Dimmesdale for having an affair with his wife. The ScarlettLetter and society today correlates to one another by intellectual arrogance and technological advances endowing the human race to do evil.
In the beginning of the novel, Roger Chillingworth arrives in Boston from being captured by Indians for two years. Hester notices him and he “slowly and calmly raised his finger, and laid [his finger] on his lips” he made the gesture to Hester so that she will not tell anyone who he is (pg. 57). Chillingworth asks a few questions as to what is going on and who the father to Hester’s daughter, Pearl. When the townsman replied, “Madam Hester [refuse] to speak”, Chillingworth exclaimed, “He will be known” (pg. 59). Later, at the prison, Chillingworth disguises himself as a doctor to try to talk with Hester. Chillingworth offers Hester and her daughter medicine, but Hester simply denies the medicine; she believes he wants to get his revenge on her. Chillingworth denies trying to harm her and he said, “foolish woman, the medicine is potent for good, and were [the drug] for my child, I...

...English 3 AP
21 October 2011
The Struggle for the Soul of Arthur Dimmesdale
In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne relates the struggle of Dimmesdale’s soul to the classic model of good vs. evil.
Arthur Dimmesdale has committed a sin that is heavily frowned upon throughout his community, though; nobody in the community knows what that sin is besides Hester Prynne. Dimmesdale is the minister of the community and he has committed the sin of adultery, partaking in an affair with Hester Prynne while she long waited for her Husband to arrive at Boston. Dimmesdale, being a religious leader, goes through the struggle for salvation throughout the novel because the action of his sin that he has committed is killing his conscious. Throughout this novel, Dimmesdale is being pulled by the two sides of good vs. evil.
In this novel, Roger Chillingworth plays as the role of evil, tormenting the life of Arthur Dimmesdale, with the intent of revenge on his mind. Rather than playing the role of a common doctor, Chillingworth is interested in revenge, not righteousness. With the change of name on his arrival in Boston, Chillingworth has hidden his past from everybody except Hester who is sworn to secrecy (Hawthorne 117). He includes himself into the society in the role of a doctor and since the town lacks any sufficient medical care, he is welcomed (Hawthorne 118). Coincidentally, Dimmesdale has been suffering from several health problems and appears...

...Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is obviously full of symbolisms. The main symbol is of course the scarlet letter itself – the badge of shame that Hester Prynne is forced to wear after she gave birth to her illegitimate daughter Pearl. This child with its peculiarity and unusualness is also a very strong symbol. In principle symbolism is also represented through other things and characters, e.g. Roger Chillingworth, Arthur Dimmesdales heart, the woods or nature.
But the scarlet letter and Pearl are dynamic symbols which develop simultaneously to the characters they belong to. Both symbols – the scarlet letter and Pearl – have an ambiguous meaning and undergo a certain change in the romance. What kind of change this is and what this means for the story of The Scarlet Letter I would like to analyze in the following.
2. The Scarlet Letter
2.1 A symbol of sin
Hester Prynne committed a sin: She had an affair while her husband was lost for two years. The result of her love affair was a baby girl called Pearl. And because she got pregnant her sin became public. The puritan community she lived in decided to force her to wear a scarlet “A” - which stands for “adulteress” or “adultery” - on her chest for the rest of her life.
The first meaning of the symbol is quite obvious: The letter represents the sin Hester committed and is a sign for her...

...Argumentative Symbolism Essay
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to reinforce the idea that, for every action, there is a positive or negative effect that will follow. In simple terms, if you do something bad, there will be a negative consequence. One of the main recurring symbols in the novel is the scarlet letter itself. The scarlet ‘A’ that Hester Prynne wears in the novel is worth a lot more than just its material value, it relays many ideas and themes. The ‘A’ is a punishment for one of the worst sins that could be committed; adultery. The punishment that is caused by the scarlet ‘A’ manifests itself in different ways and in different people. For example, Hester’s punishment comes in the form of public embarrassment and shame, whereas Minister Dimmesdale’s guilt comes in the form of personal guilt. The ‘A’ means different things at different times in the book also.
In the beginning of the novel we are introduced to the scarlet ‘A’ on Hester’s chest. In this part of the book, the ‘A’ represents one of the worst sins that a person could commit; adultery. There really weren’t many other sins back in those days that were worse than sexual impurity. Hester’s crime was so serious that her punishment would follow her around for the rest of her life. Even at the beginning of the story Hester is feeling the weight of her punishment on her chest....

...The ScarlettLetter
In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthrone, symbolism plays an important role. The symbols are apparent throughout the novel and reoccur in different places. The Scarlet Letter contains symbols including: the letter “A”, Pearl, and the scaffold.
Hester Prynne performs an act of adultery and as a punishment; she is giving the scarlet letter. The scarletletter is most important symbol in the book, hence the books title. The scarlet letter, at first, is meant to represent shame and sin. The “a” literally represents adultery and Hester’s criminal act. The red coloring of the “a” symbolizes passion, love, and sin. Later in the book, the letter’s symbol becomes different to each of the characters. To Hester the letter means embarrassment and humiliation from the Puritan society. "Hester looked, by way of humoring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it." This quote shows how the Puritan community doesn’t see Hester as the person she is, but as a sinner. The letter, to Dimsdale, represents his guilt and responsibility to Hester’s crime. It constantly...

...The Scarlet Letter is about a woman, Hester Prynne, who commits adultery. She is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her chest while the identity of her partner is kept a secret. Her husband, who has been gone, arrives and asks that his identity be kept a secret so he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of Hester’s sin. He swears that he will find out who her partner is. Meanwhile her partner, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, is feeling the consequences of his actions. His guilt is eating at him and ruining his health.
The main character, Hester Prynne, whose sin was adultery, kept the identity of her partner a secret and the identity of her husband a secret. Hester, as a result of her sin had to wear the scarlet letter A on her chest to remind her and the community of her sin. “When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter, ….they branded it fresh into her soul.”(p.59) The wearing of the letter also had an effect on Hester’s appearance. “Even the attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. It might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress and partly to the lack of demonstrations in her manners.….there seemed to be no longer any thing in Hester’s face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester’s form, though majestic and statue-like, that Passion would ever dream of clasping its embrace; nothing in Hester’s bosom, to make it ever again the pillow of...